When you fly into the Rwandan capital Kigali, one thing is abundantly clear: land is in short supply. Is seems as though every inch of this hilly country is under cultivation. So it is with some justification that some experts are concerned that Rwanda and neighbouring Burundi could be the epicentre of a population time-bomb. Small and landlocked, withRead More …

By Olive Thiong’o At the close of the recent East and Central Africa Bean Research Network [ECABREN] steering committee meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, participants unanimously agreed to begin implementing the gender guidelines introduced in PABRA’s 2009 – 2013 framework. Following a thorough review of the work done in the first year of this phase, gender “mainstreaming” – one ofRead More …

The recent release of 15 improved climbing bean varieties in Rwanda features in the latest edition of the online development magazine Sci-Dev. The beans, developed by the CIAT and its partner, the Rwandan Agricultural Research Institute (ISAR), are well-suited to rainy, high-altitude areas, and include varieties with disease resistance. Some could triple the yields of the more commonly grownRead More …

Farmers in Rwanda will soon benefit from new climbing bean varieties that promise significantly higher yields, and which could challenge the dominance of bush beans in the country. Extensive trials by CIAT and the Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA), have shown that the new varieties can quadruple the yields compared to the more commonly-grown bush beans. The varieties growRead More …